Police truth serum may taint murder case
By David Waite
Advertiser Courts Writer
A decision by Honolulu police detectives in May 1975 to use truth serum on a 13-year-old girl in hopes it would help her remember details about an incident in which another girl was killed may hurt the prosecution's case against murder suspect Delmar Edmonds.
Edmonds, 47, is scheduled to go on trial Oct. 14 for the March 14, 1975, slaying of Dawn "Dede" Bustamante. He has pleaded not guilty to charges of murder and attempted murder.
The prosecution contends that Edmonds, who was a Marine assigned to the Marine Corps base at Kane'ohe at the time Bustamante was slain, kidnapped the two girls at gunpoint and drove them to an area behind Pali Golf Course.
Bustamante, 13, was killed by a shot to the back of the head, but the other girl escaped and called police.
During a hearing before Circuit Judge Marie Milks that was spread over several days this week, former Honolulu police detectives Jeff Yamashita and William Ornellas said the girl who survived the incident was injected with truth serum about a month later in hopes it would help her remember more details.
During his testimony, Ornellas characterized the truth serum attempt as "sort of a waste of time," because the girl wasn't able to remember much more than she had told investigators the night of Bustamante's death.
Yesterday, Milks told city deputy prosecutor Rom Trader and Edmonds' lawyer, state deputy public defender Susan Arnett, that she will likely not allow use of the so-called "truth serum interview" if Edmonds goes to trial.
Milks said she also was inclined not to allow the use of three separate interviews of the "surviving witness," which were done in 2001. Milks said she was concerned that the witness' recollections of what happened the night of Bustamante's slaying may have been forever altered a month after the incident when the girl was given the truth serum and asked "suggestive questions" by police investigators.
For example, up until the point she was given the truth serum, the surviving girl had always described her assailant as a "Negro." But while under the influence of the truth serum, the girl answered "yes" when asked by investigators if the assailant might have been "part Negro" or "Puerto Rican."
Trader told Milks that while the question of whether hypnosis-induced information can be used in a criminal proceeding in Hawai'i has been addressed by the state Supreme Court, the use of truth serum by police investigators on a witness in the Bustamante case appears to be an unusual situation, and an issue never addressed by the state high court.
Trader said "the proof is in the pudding" and noted that what the girl told investigators while under the influence of the truth serum was essentially no different than what she said to them the night Bustamante was killed.
But Arnett said there were significant differences. When given the serum, the girl told investigators the abductor used foul language to her and Bustamante and had put a gun to the surviving girl's head and tried to choke her before she escaped — both new or substantially different recollections compared to the first interview.
Milks said that if the case goes to trial and prosecutors need to refresh the surviving witness' recollection of what happened 27 years ago, they can refer her to the statement she gave to police the night Bustamante was killed.
Milks plans to rule on two motions by the defense to dismiss the charges against Edmonds, by Thursday.
